A Glance on Education Sector Development to Year 2010
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Jipe Vol. 12(1) June, 2020 Evolution and Policy Reforms in Tanzania: A Glance on Education Sector Development to Year 2010. Newton M. Kyando [email protected] The Open University of Tanzania ABSTRACT This article focuses on the education sector policy development in Tanzania, by a review of related literature. It starts with a brief on education in colonial times through of Mwalimu Nyerere in Tanzania politics; educational aspects of the Ujamaa na Kujitegemea policy leading into Education for Self Reliance; recent educational policies reflecting the reforms experienced in Tanzania; and finally a look at the most recent educational document, ESDP, as a working document. A close look reveals the long persisting educational problems that have been moving with the reforms. It is clear that the educational reforms and policies had, always, political forces behind them as well as global economic changes on its broadest sense. Post 1980 economic forces dismantled whatever was built by the political forces, in the name of reforms. These, when combined with existing problems, raises a number of questions; Is the failure of policy implementation a result of little or no consideration of educational research? And what is the educational research position when it comes to influencing policy implementation? This paper argues that reform and transformations in policies are based on foreign forces, ad hoc measures and limited scientific evaluation of issues from the local initiatives. This has led into catch up approach of policy making in education sector, making it difficult to establish long-term success base. By implication this means that scholars within the state borders, whether by design or default had stayed out of policy processes. Keywords: Ujamaa, Kujitegemea, Education for Self-Reliance, Education Policy, Education Reforms 120 Jipe Vol. 12(1) June, 2020 INTRODUCTION The term education referred to in this paper is restricted to the formal approach to knowledge acquisition, the ‘Western’ mode of learning. This definition is adopted to avoid the contradiction that may arise between learning and education. The Western mode of knowledge is associated with literacy as a necessary, though not a sufficient way of determining the positive direction of learning. Education in this manner is assumed to have started as early as the time of the intrusion of foreigners in Tanzania (at that time Tanganyika and Zanzibar) from Europe and mid Asia. For the purpose of this paper, the focus starts with education in colonial times. Education During Colonial Times In Tanganyika (the main land part of Tanzania), the first and formal colonial rule was that of the Germans. German rule was established after the Berlin conference in mid 1880s, and formal education at this time was established by the colonial rulers, also their religious communities, aiming at training the lower cadre officers to fit into the state operation and to serve as support staff in religious teaching at the local level. The German defeat in World War I marked the end of its colonial rule in Tanganyika; thereafter the territory was left in UN trusteeship under British mandatory power (Ishumi, 1978 Ssekamwa and Lugumba, 2001). However, the change in the ruling power did not change the focus of education provision. Rather it had an additional dimension in Tanganyika, just as in the other British colonies. For instance, in India the British administrator, Lord Macauley in 1836, clearly set the objective for education as: We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and millions whom we govern- a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the western nomenclature and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population (Kapoor, 2001). Following the same ideology, a similar class had to be formed in Tanganyika. The majority of this small group, comprising mainly men who could read and write, was prepared to serve as clerks, office boys and junior officials in the district and provincial administration. For quite a long time, serving in such capacity was a novelty motivating not only the small number of school pupils but also their parents. Religious groups had, for 121 Jipe Vol. 12(1) June, 2020 related purposes established their own schools. This was primarily for preparing assistants in promoting the religious faith the missions wished to transfer to the communities. In the course of training African clerics at that time the religious groups also made room for other citizens, with priority to believers and potential believers. This added to the number of Tanganyikans schooled in the colonial times. However, the balance between formal education and religious teaching varied significantly both between and within the religions. For the Islamic institutions which had a close tie to the Arab world, emphasis was on the Arabic language and on Islamic teaching. This was done in madrassahs as opposed to the missionary schools of the Christians, in which the potential priests had to major in the religious teachings. For Islamic Madrassahs Islamic knowledge was the main target in the name of ‘elimu akhera’ meaning heavenly knowledge. The sole focus on religious teaching in Islam has contributed to the present imbalance of elites in and between the religious groups in the present Tanzania (Ssekamwa and Lugumba, 2001). The few elites who had the privilege of getting into school formed exactly what Lord Macauley wanted - a group of black Europeans, English to be more specific, in opinion, and in tastes - and this created a gap between the elite and rest of the population. Sir Donald Cameron in 1925 as Governor of Tanganyika is quoted by Ishumi saying [in the calculated words]: We must not in fact destroy the African atmosphere, the African mind, the whole foundations of his race …[instead] we [endeavour] to purge the native system of its abuses, to graft our higher civilization upon soundly rooted native stock … that [has] its foundations in the hearts and minds thoughts of the people (Ishumi, 1978:36). This made the elite very privileged in almost every aspect of social life. It almost created a sort of conflict as the elites were the ‘civilized primitive natives’ and were placed at the ‘more human level’. This classification did not end with the departure of the colonial power; it survived the change at independence which was essentially the removal of white rulers. In relation to this, another aspect of elitism, the ownership of the means of production, raised itself. In this situation, the civil society felt that the national economy was largely in the hands of the few individuals who were ‘at the human level’, to put it in Cameron’s words. There was a call to return this wealth to mass ownership and stop further expansion of this situation (Eknes, 2003). This resulted in a national campaign 122 Jipe Vol. 12(1) June, 2020 following the Arusha Declaration. The declaration was pronounced on February, 5 1967. Before discussing the declaration, it is important to understand that the political changes from Tanganyika to the present Tanzania had in them the inspiration of the first President and most prominent politician in the country, Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere (Tenga, 1994). Mwalimu Nyerere in Tanzania’s Politics Julius K. Nyerere is a name that became prominent in Tanganyika in the last decade of colonial rule. He appeared in national politics as early as 1954 as a teacher at Pugu School after his graduation from Makerere, the University of East Africa. He had been elected as first Chairman of the newly formed Tanganyika African National Union (TANU). He organized the independence campaign for Tanganyika, getting people ready for African rule and holding a presentation on behalf of the Tanganyikans before the Security Council of the former United Nations Organization (UNO) which was a necessary condition for establishing African rule in their territory. His presentation was successful and on December 9, 1961 Tanganyika regained her independence and Julius Nyerere was her first prime minister. Nyerere became the first President in 1962 when Tanganyika was made a republic, then the first President of the United Republic of Tanzania as result of Tanganyika, the mainland, uniting with Zanzibar, the Tanzanian islands which by then had just gained independence through a revolution which ended the Sultan’s rule in Zanzibar (Ssekamwa and Lugumba, 2001). At this time Nyerere as President seemed to be unimpressed with the progress being made by the country he was leading. The big problem was the country’s economy. He looked at wealth distribution in the state, which appeared to contradict the major focus for African self-rule: To tap the periphery of resources through mechanisms of capital-drain, resources-drain, body-drain and brain-drain. (Nyerere 1968: 10) After independence the gap between the rich and poor was increasing; much of the means of production was in the hands of a few, mainly Europeans and Asians and a privileged few Africans. The education system was cited as an exacerbating factor for this uneven distribution of wealth, access to the means of production and more seriously the ownership of them (Nyerere 1968, Eknes 2003). Redistribution of wealth in the state and reallocating the means of production was called for in the Arusha Declaration. The Declaration aimed at solving the problem as fast as possible but also to make the solution a long term 123 Jipe Vol. 12(1) June, 2020 one. This splits the Declaration into two aspects, the economic aspects of the means of production and wealth redistribution on the one hand and the education necessary to equip Tanzanians with knowledge and to give them an understanding of general national goals on the other.